Part of our ability to be at peace, in ourselves, and in the world is a sense of "home" - a safe haven or feeling of inner resource inside ourselves. The Bhagavad Gita compares this to being like a storm lantern in which the glass protects the flame no matter how windy it is outside (or inside as the case might be).Here's this week's practice:

From Jack Kornfield [brackets are mine]: We can sense the ever-changing waves around [and inside] us, and breathe and relax [anyway]. We can rest in the eternal present, the still point [embodied, with wide open, multidirectional senses]. We can learn that no matter what happens, we are home.

All the best remembering yourself not just "at home" in yourself, but as home, whatever the day may bring! Namaste

Sometimes we misperceive "letting go" as something to do rather than something we can prepare for, create a space for, and then allow...

From Jack Kornfiled [brackets are mine]: What would we have to [notice, admit and] hold in compassion to be at peace right now? What would we have to let go of to be at peace right now? [without a requirement to let go]

Perhaps, it we are more honest with ourselves, a stance to adopt might be "what would I be willing to consider letting go"? or even "willing to be willing"?

Fall can be a time we get "out of balance" - busy schedules, blustery weather and temperature changes, family holidays, chaos and unkindness in the world at large. How can out practice help our minds to be clear so we can keep perspective, and see ourselves and others clearly and with compassion, even when challenge is required?

From Jack Kornfield and William Butler Yates, a bit of very yogic wisdom: With equanimity [upekshanam in Sanskrit] we can see clearly. We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather round us, that they may see their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer perhaps even a fiercer life because of our quiet.

Fall is a time of letting go - leaves falling, harvest coming off the vines and trees and out of the ground. There's a bittersweetness often in letting and a paradox that we cannot let go of what we don't fully meet. We can have an intention to let go, but it cannot be forced.

From Jack Kornfield: "To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion [and curiosity], things come and go on their own." As the Bhagavad Gita advises: The secret of human freedom is to act well, without attachment to results

What's the difference in your body, mind and heart between refusing to acknowledge or "making go away", and "letting go" by engaging, leaning in, allowing, and getting curious and "kindful". As one experiment, you might explore how the breath offers us a model of how letting go might happen...

Author

Misha Butot RCSW, ERYT 500 is a longtime clinical social worker and senior yoga teacher living in Victoria, BC